Wahkiakum County resident Krist Novoselic and his former band Nirvana have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Nirvana joins KISS, Peter Gabriel, Hall and Oates, Cat Stevens and Linda Ronstadt as this year’s inductees.

Novoselic, 48, said during a phone interview from his Deep River farmhouse Tuesday that he learned of the news Monday night.

“I found out on Twitter, as usual,” he said. “I was expecting it. I didn’t want to be presumptuous, like we were going to get it for sure, but everybody was telling me were going to get it.”

He never imagined Nirvana would someday be inducted into the Hall of Fame when the band recorded its first album in 1989. Nirvana had been playing small, dingy clubs around Olympia, Tacoma and Seattle, and its songs were only heard on a Sunday night specialty show on Seattle KISW radio.

“We were from the underground,” Novoselic said. “We were just part of this independent scene. We just made our own world.”

He did it for the art, not the acclaim.

“You get drawn into that creative process. I’ve got my bass on and I do my thing. The drummer’s on. The singer and the guitar player are on. And we all just come together,” he said. “You’re living life. You’re drawn into that moment. You’re driven to do something. That’s a real gift.”

Novoselic formed Nirvana with Kurt Cobain in Aberdeen, Wash., in 1987. Cobain’s screeching melodies and tearing guitar riffs, punctuated by Novoselic’s fast and thundering bass-lines, tore through the rock world in the 1990s and introduced Seattle’s “grunge” music scene to the world. In the same way that the Beatles represented the peaceniks and hippies of the 60s, Nirvana’s lyrics were disaffected and nihilistic. They spoke to a generation of bored, frustrated youth looking for meaning.

Nirvana has sold more than 75 million records worldwide — 25 million in the U.S. alone — making the band one of the most successful in rock history. Two of Nirvana’s studio albums — “Nevermind” and “In Utero” — topped the Billboard 200 chart, as did two of the band’s live albums. The band abruptly broke up after Cobain killed himself in 1994.

In the years since Nirvana, Novoselic has at once lived the life of a quiet, timber town resident and rock superstar. One day he is taking classes at the local community college. On another he is backing up a former Beatle in front of tens of thousands of fans.

Novoselic bought his Deep River home in 1992 and has been living there full-time since about 1999. It’s a silent, unassuming place deep in the hills. His four dogs and a few chickens wander the property.

Over the last two decades, he has hosted a radio show in nearby Astoria and served as the Worthy Master of the Grays River Grange No. 124, a particular passion of his. He has accompanied a fellow grange member, the Wahkiakum County author and naturalist Robert Michael Pyle, on finger-style guitar as Pyle performed spoken-word prose. And he has engaged in state politics and was even recruited at one time to run for lieutenant governor.

Last December, Novoselic and the surviving members of Nirvana reunited with former Beatle Paul McCartney at Madison Square Garden in New York for a concert to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy. McCartney and Nirvana played on Saturday Night Live the same month.

Novoselic was onstage with McCartney again this summer, this time at a sold-out Safeco Field in Seattle. Also this summer, Novoselic and his wife, Darbury Stenderu, flew his Cessna to Chicago to work with the legendary producer Steve Albini on a remastered recording of “In Utero” for the album’s 20th anniversary.

But he has spent many of his days at Lower Columbia College in Longview taking classes for a law degree. A few months ago, Novoselic could be seen at the Cowlitz County Hall of Justice, where he was observing trials for a legal class. When “In Utero” was re-released, a Rolling Stone reporter interviewed him in the children’s section of the Longview Public Library.

Artists become eligible for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25 years after the release of their first album or single. Nirvana, whose first single “Love Buzz” came out in 1988, are being inducted into the institution during their first year of eligibility.

“That’s really no surprise to me,” Rock and Roll Hall of Fame President and CEO Joel Peresman told the Associated Press. “People see the relevancy of that band.”

Novoselic will be officially inducted in April during a concert at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. It has not been announced who will perform.

“I haven’t really thought about that,” Novoselic said of the ceremony.

Asked about the bands that inspired him as a young musician, Novoselic was quick to mention his fellow inductees, KISS, as well as the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Van Halen and punk rock greats the Sex Pistols, Minor Threat and Black Flag.

“I was really lucky to be a part of … American punk rock. That’s a real blessing,” he said.

In 1990, less than a year after Nirvana released its first album, Bleach, on the Seattle independent record label Sub Pop, Novoselic and Cobain drove to Los Angeles to meet with Susan Silver, the manager of another hard-hitting Seattle band, Soundgarden.

“She introduced us to these major-label people,” Novoselic recalled Tuesday. “That was our first taste of L.A. We didn’t even have a drummer and there were people who were interested in us.”

Alternative rock bands like Jane’s Addiction and Faith No More were having huge mainstream success and major record labels were snatching up small punk and grunge bands like crazy.

“Every band was getting signed,” Novoselic said Tuesday. “Labels had this strategy of throwing you against the wall like pasta to see if you would stick. If they didn’t stick, they would just drop you. Great bands were never given a chance to develop.”

On the way home from L.A., Novoselic and Cobain stopped in San Francisco to visit their friends in the band the Melvins and went to a concert in North Beach where another band, Scream, was performing.

“They had this drummer, Dave Grohl, who was really good,” Novoselic said.

“Dave called us a week later,” Novoselic said, because Scream had imploded after moving to L.A. when its bass player quit. One of the band members had a sister who worked as a stripper, and Grohl had been staying with her. But her landlord was demanding back rent and had removed the home’s front door.

“They were busted and broke in L.A. So Dave had to get out of there,” Novoselic said. “The rest was history.”

Grohl came to Seattle and joined Nirvana. The band released its second album, “Nevermind,” in 1991. Four months later, on Jan. 11, 1992, «Nevermind» knocked Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” off the No. 1 spot on Billboard’s Top 200 album chart.

“It was very hard to adjust to,” Novoselic said. “We were into the punk world. In the 80s, young people built their own structures for entertainment and social activities.. .. It seemed like Rolling Stone and MTV — they were like Safeway and we were shopping at the co-op.”

Nirvana released a follow-up, «In Utero,» in 1993 and it also rose to Billboard’s No. 1 spot. But Cobain, who struggled with heroin addiction, committed suicide at the age of 27 on April 8, 1994, and the band broke up. Grohl went on to form the wildly successful Foo Fighters.

Asked if Nirvana would still be together and making records today if Cobain were still alive, Novoselic said, “I don’t know. Its so hard. Bands — it’s so hard to speculate. Bands stay together. Bands fall apart. They can reunite again. It’s just so hard to say.”

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